Giacomo Pastorella

Where Eagles Dare

Automation is starting to impact more and more fields of expertise were humans were considered to be essential: driving cars, working in a factory, serving food and, lately, the art of killing one another. As the era of mass warfare came to an end, the population of western countries became increasingly unsupportive with the idea… Read more Where Eagles Dare

Silicon Valley: the NIMBYland

It is a well-known fact that, much like the treacherous waters surrounding Alcatraz Island, the housing market in the Bay area is a cold and unforgiving place to be if one doesn’t have the means to stay afloat. The price of housing has been increasing steadily over the last few decades, following the boom of… Read more Silicon Valley: the NIMBYland

Hic Sunt Dracones

The Space Race started with an early lead by the Soviet Union, which managed to reach a stable orbit with the first ever artificial satellite, the Sputnik 1. This impressive achievement started the so-called “Sputnik Crisis” in the United States, as the West feared that the USSR had surpassed it in space-related technologies, which had obvious… Read more Hic Sunt Dracones

Blockchain and Roadblocks

While the rest of the world seems disillusioned by cryptocurrencies, all in the red after the frenzy of the last months of 2017, it seems that Bitcoin found an improbable adopter in the people of Venezuela. But first, let’s take a look at the troubled history of Venezuela’s fiat currency. The current fiat currency of… Read more Blockchain and Roadblocks

Automating the World

Last year I met professor Jerry Kaplan, from Stanford, who published his new books on AIs (AI: a guide to the near future [1] and We don’t need people [2]) with my University. In a short, one-hour lecture, he managed to paint a very good overview of where AIs are now and in what directions they will… Read more Automating the World